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Pavarotti in opera duets

Today is Australia Day, the official National Day of Australia, which is celebrated annually on 26 January in Australia and by Australians living abroad.

Pavarotti performed in Australia many times during his career, but there is another important Australian connection for Pavarotti. The Australian soprano Dame Joan Sutherland was together with her conductor husband Richard Bonynge instrumental for Pavarotti’s career on stage and on record, especially in the early stages of his career. Pavarotti and Sutherland made many landmark recordings on Decca together, as well as performing in operas and concerts together.

In the following video Pavarotti and Sutherland sing the duet “Prendi: l’anel ti dono” from the Bellini opera La Sonnambula from a concert in 1983 in Sydney, Australia with Bonynge conducting. This concert is available on CD and DVD.

The Three Tenors performed in Australia once. On 1 March 1997 The Three Tenors performed at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne as part of their World Tour together with conductor Marco Armiliato. At this concert The Three Tenors surprised their audience by singing the popular Australian song “Waltzing Matilda“, by many described as the country’s “unofficial national anthem”.

Pavarotti held solo concerts in Australia as well. More on that in another post. Let’s end these Australia Day celebrations with a clip of Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma!” from The Three Tenors concert mentioned above. Clearly Pavarotti conquered Australia too! 🙂

Happy Australia Day everybody, especially my Australian followers! 🙂

This blog post no. 303 was first published 26-01-2016. Last revision 26-01-2016.

The Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo is still active as a singer and conductor. It’s amazing how active he still is considering his high age. Needless to say Domingo was one of The Three Tenors together with Pavarotti and Carreras.

To celebrate his 75th birthday on 21 January, 2016, a 2 CDs compilation entitled “Domingo: The 50 Greatest Tracks“ has just been released on Deutsche Grammophon. This compilation is also available on download and streaming.

Today, the 12th October 2015, would have been Pavarotti’s 80th birthday. It’s still so sad that he his no longer with us, but let’s remember the great man with one of his famous quotes and some his music.

The 80th birthday video celebration is showcasing great stage performances by Pavarotti. In some of the clips the great Pavarotti sings together with some of his many colleagues. Enjoy!

Today is the release date for a brand new Pavarotti DVD entitled Pavarotti Plus. This is the entire Pavarotti Plus concert from Royal Albert Hall in London in 1995.

The complete title of this release is Pavarotti Plus 20th Anniversary Edition. Previously available on Decca VHS this reissue is indeed very welcome!

Pavarotti is joined by several of his opera colleagues together with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leone Magiera. Pavarotti sings arias and duets, and there are also several numbers where his colleagues sing without him.

Previously the complete concert was issued on a double CD and all the numbers which Pavarotti sang was issued on a single CD (both on Decca). Both CD editions are no longer available, so reissues are in order. At least all the Pavarotti numbers should be included in a future volume of The Luciano Pavarotti Edition.

Today is the 80th birthday of the great Italian soprano Mirella Freni. She wasn’t just one of Pavarotti’s most important singing partners, she was also a lifelong friend of Pavarotti.

Mirella Freni was born on 27 February 1935, in the same year as Pavarotti. She was born in the little Italian town of Modena, just as Pavarotti. Their life turned out so that they became lifelong friends and colleagues on the operatic stage. They also recorded many complete operas together.

We celebrate the 80th birthday of the great Mirella Freni with three operatic duets by Luciano and Mirella together! The three operatic duets are in running order:

At last! A compilation of Pavarotti’s best operatic duets is out now! The compilation is entitled Classic duets and is available on Decca CD, download and streaming.

Classic duets has 15 tracks, but the iTunes download and Spotify streaming versions have three additional tracks and a slightly different cover.

There is also a DVD released, also entitled Classic Duets, which has 15 tracks. Many of the duets are the same as on the CD version, but sung with other singing partners than on the CD.

The duets featured on Classic duets are such duets as O soave fanciulla from La Bohème and Bella figlia dell’amore from Rigoletto, in addition to lesser known duets.

Pavarotti’s duet partners on Classic duets include such greats as Mirella Freni, Joan Sutherland, Renata Scotto, Nicolai Ghiaurov and many more. Even José Carreras and Plácido Domingo! Yes! A Three Tenors duet is included! Guess which one!

I hope you like the Pavarotti Duets post card above! Yes, it’s me, Odd Pavarotti, on the post card in an non-existent never before released virtual duet with the great Pavarotti! 🙂

The release of Classic duets is parallel to the pop duets compilation The Duets, also issued on Decca CD, download, streaming and DVD. In fact, both releases have similar cover design.

The Classic duets comes highly recommended. The CD and DVD are both filled with great operatic duets. Such as this one, taken from the DVD: Pavarotti and Renata Scotto sing O soave fanciulla from La Bohème from the Metropolitan Opera in 1977.

Today, on 12th October 2014, would have been Pavarotti’s 79th birthday. It’s so sad that he his no longer with us, but let’s remember the great man with music! Here is Pavarotti at his best, in a 79th birthday video celebration showcasing great stage performances by Pavarotti together with some of his colleagues. Enjoy!